Does Innovation Only Happen In The Office?

Cari Sommer
, I help business leaders shape ideas and build influence in the media.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Marissa Mayer isn’t new to making headlines, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that her decision to ban virtual work arrangements at Yahoo! is creating such noise. Workplace flexibility is a heated topic, and Mayer’s new policy brings this dialogue front and center. Approximately 13.4 million people work from home at least one day a week—a number which has steadily increased over the last decade. Add to that the explosion of tools enabling virtual collaboration and communication, and many are calling Mayer’s decision odd for a Silicon Valley innovator and a huge step backwards for the workplace. And that’s before the heated debate over the impact on working parents.

According to the HR memo that notified people of this decision, virtual work was being eliminated because communication and collaboration require side-by-side interaction and the best of innovation comes from real time interaction. While I’m personally in favor of workplace flexibility and find Mayer's policy to be too absolute, I find the reasoning interesting. In our increasingly virtual world, I think there’s merit in highlighting the value of face-to-face business interaction. I also think this brings up a good question about the relationship between innovation, productivity and virtual work.

I asked some experts to weigh in on this topic. Here’s what they had to say:

Face-to-face interaction is important, but it can also be facilitated through the right tools. Jaime Klein, President of Inspire Human Resources and an expert in helping organizations to hire, retain and train talent, has seen 2 wins from the rise of work from home arrangements-- increased productivity and tremendous real estate cost saves. “I appreciate the perspective that there's increased innovation from in-person interactions, and that there may be a trade offs when an organization has people working virtually. However, I think that employers get too much productivity from their virtual employees to give that up. There would be too much downside for them to make that shift. The compromise is to get that productivity and still facilitate the personal connections and innovation by leveraging video conferencing tools like zoom.us, Google Hangout, and iPhone’s Face time. The human brain still needs the non-verbal cues to establish credibility, build rapport and strengthen relationships. Our minds have to work harder to get a sense of someone and connect when we only rely on the written and spoken word. These innovative tools offer a way to get those face-to-face interactions back that keep the creativity and innovation flowing.”

Virtual work policies can be wildly effective, especially when a policy is well thought out with regard to communication and expectations. Eden Abrahams, Principal of Clear Path Executive Coaching, currently coaches someone who works from home and commutes to her office- a 3 hour round trip- twice a week. “My client has very deep and specialized content expertise that is quite valuable to her organization, and this arrangement has been in place since she was first hired. When I conducted her 360 degree feedback assessment, the only time her virtual status was mentioned was to emphasize how incredibly responsive she is, as a manager and a peer, despite working remotely. In the instances where virtual work arrangements haven’t worked so well, the factors to blame are typically some combination of mismatched or unrealistic expectations about accessibility, poor communications (rather than building in extra touch points, all-hands meetings, etc.) and a failure to use the right tools, such as video conferencing and instant messaging, to supplement email and calls. With regard to Yahoo!, if they’re committed to hiring and retaining the best people they can find, I would be surprised if this policy doesn't get revised or relaxed at some point in the future.”

The lack of virtual work could cost talented, engaged associates. Camille Preston, President of AIM Leadership and a pioneer in the field of virtual effectiveness thinks that while Mayer may be craving an integrated cohesive workforce, she erroneously thinks that the only way to do this is to mandate appearance. Plus, this will cost her some of the greatest talents from tomorrow’s workforce who will be gauging their success based on results, relationships, flexibility and sustainability. Virtual work arrangements go a long way when it comes to the last two factors.

I see an important nuance in the size and stage of the company. Start-ups that are rapidly growing and expanding can often benefit from having a core team working face to face. Take, for example, Work Market, an enterprise platform for managing contract labor. “When we started Work Market our initial configuration was very distributed as we had some great people we wanted to get on our team,” said Co-Founder Jeff Wald. “Unfortunately, given the pace of change and need for tight collaborative iteration on product, message and process we ended up insisting everyone be together. It is just very difficult to create disruptive innovation unless you have constant iteration and the reality is, proximity drives that iterative process. You can't have an epiphany at 3am at a whiteboard while skyping with someone.” Wald believes we’ll see other companies take a cue from Yahoo!, at least when it comes to start-ups.

It will be interesting to see how this debate plays out and whether Mayer yields to the criticism surrounding her decision. Either way, this brings up an important conversation about how much is too much when it comes to virtual work.